by Claire Adams
The phone seemed to ring for an agonizingly long time, despite the fact that it only took two rings before someone picked up. “This is Andrew Goldwright,” I blurted out. “I've got a Code Ultra Violet.”
“Location?”
I rattled out Renée's cell phone number, knowing that they could use that to trace her. It was all the information that I had for them.
Once I was satisfied that they were on their way toward Lexi, I called the police and directed them toward my house, telling them that there had been a break in.
Then, I sat back in my chair for a moment, wondering just what to do now. As much as I wanted to be the hero, I didn't even know where Lexi was. I couldn't swoop in and save her. God, I would die if anything happened to her.
I stood up, reminding myself that I could still go home and see Emma. Emma, who probably needed a serious amount of cuddles, ice cream, and therapy to get over this. My heart broke, thinking of how terrified she must be.
All my fault, that voice inside me reminded me again. I pushed it away and headed towards the parking lot. It was only after I reached my car that I realized how bad my hands were shaking. I probably shouldn't be driving in this state. I paused for a moment and then, in a daze, called a driver and instructed them to bring a car around to the front of the building.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Lexi
I sobbed as Renée hung up the phone. Nothing Andrew had said had been directed at me, even though he must have realized that he was on speakerphone and that I could hear everything that he said. But it had been marginally calming just to hear his voice. I knew that he was going to try to rescue me.
Unfortunately, I'd have to figure out some way to stay alive long enough for him to figure out where I was and come rescue me. I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to do that, not when Renée was standing there in a floor-length crimson gown, brandishing a gun at me. I kept expecting her to accidentally shoot the thing, what with all her theatrical posturing.
In some part of my mind, it was almost funny, watching her. But all I could feel just then was terror.
I wished that I could have given Andrew some information, some clue about where to find us. But even though Renée hadn't gagged me, I didn't seem capable of speech. I couldn't tell him much anyway. All I could see was that we were in some sort of warehouse, but in a city like Seattle, that didn't exactly narrow it down. I knew we must have driven someplace before Renée tied me up in this chair, but I couldn't remember that part. She must have knocked me out with some sort of drug when we were still back at Andrew's place.
I was just relieved to hear her say that Emma and Janice were all right. That had been my first concern, as soon as I'd come fully to my senses.
Renée stalked towards me, her eyes narrowed. “I still can't believe you think that you deserve him,” she snarled. “You're just some poor, white-trash, gold-digging bitch with a little brat. Andrew doesn't want you. You're not his type. He's only putting up with you because he's convinced that the brat is his.”
“Emma is his daughter,” I protested, even though I knew that I probably should shut up. I shouldn't provoke her, or who knew what she would decide to do.
“Bullshit, she is,” Renée snapped, swiftly slapping me across the face with the hand that wasn't holding the gun. “I put effort into Andrew, you know? I was grooming him to be my husband. We were going to take over the business world as a charming couple. We were going to be the cream of the crop of the elite. And then you had to come along and fuck that all up.”
She breathed out heavily through her nose. “I could have let it go if you had deserved him. If you'd been a worthy opponent. If you were someone else, maybe I would have conceded the match. But you're just some stupid little con-artist who thinks that she can have whatever she wants. That's not the way the world works.”
“Please, Renée,” I said quietly. “You know that we can't choose who we fall in love with. I get it. You don't want Andrew to be with someone else. But killing me isn't going to solve that. You know that. It's just going to get you in more trouble. Andrew can't help it. He just doesn't want to be with you. But there's someone out there who does want to be with you. Maybe you've known him all along. Maybe you just didn't notice him because you were too busy trying to get with Andrew.”
“Andrew and I are perfect for each other!” Renée insisted, her voice turning shrill. “Now shut up. I don't want to hear anything else from you. Your words are poison.”
“Renée,” I sighed. “I don't want any trouble with you. Why don't you let me go? I promise I'll never go anywhere near Andrew again if you do. I just wanted what was best for Emma. This isn't it. Now that I see that, I'll leave. I'll go someplace where he'll never be able to find us.”
It hurt, just telling her that, even though I had no intention of doing it. But at that moment, I was ready to promise her anything if she would just let me go.
“You think I don't know that if you were out there somewhere, Andrew would spend the rest of his life looking for you?” Renée said, sneering at me. “You heard him on the phone. He thinks he's in love with you. I couldn't let you go, even if I wanted to. The only way is to kill you.”
I shuddered, absolutely terrified. From the way that Renée was talking, from the way that she was fixated on this whole thing, I could tell that she had lost her mind. I wasn't sure what to do in this situation. Nothing in my life had prepared me for this.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. “For keeping Emma safe. For not hurting her. That, at least, I really appreciate.”
“I didn't do it for you,” Renée told me. “In fact, I did it for the opposite of you. That poor little brat is going to have to grow up all alone, without a mother. Andrew's not going to keep her around, so I guess she's going to float around the foster care system for the rest of her young days. She'll be depressed, with everything that she's lost. She had all the best things in the world, but she'll have nothing, soon enough. Maybe she'll even kill herself.”
I choked, thinking of Emma that way. I knew it wasn't true. Even if Renée killed me and even if Emma had to grow up without me there by her side, there was no way that Andrew was going to get rid of her.
Renée spun toward me suddenly, pointing the gun right at me and cocking it. I could hear the click, and I imagined that I could hear the echo of it even. My blood ran cold, and I couldn’t quit sobbing.
“Please,” I whispered, even though I knew there was no reasoning with her. “Please, please, please.”
As scared as I was, none of this was a surprise. I knew that my luck had turned sour the night that I'd slept with Andrew. I couldn't regret having Emma in my life, but she definitely hadn't been planned. And then there had been everything with work and my apartment, and now here I was, set to lose the most important thing of all. It should be a relief at this point, but I couldn't stop thinking of Andrew and Emma. I couldn't stop picturing them grieving.
I wondered what Renée really thought was going to happen after this. If she killed me, there would be no hiding the evidence. She had made her plan clear enough over the phone call, and I was sure that, being a preeminent businessman, Andrew had some sort of feature in place to record his incoming calls. She wasn't going to be able to kill me and then pretend like nothing had ever happened. She wasn't going to be able to marry Andrew, not in this lifetime.
But of course, she wasn't thinking clearly. I could see that in the way that she disarmed the gun and spun away, doing a little twirl, like she was imagining Andrew spinning her on some dance floor. Maybe she was imagining their wedding. It was almost sad, seeing her like this.
No matter how sad it was, I was still terrified. I couldn't think of how Andrew was going to manage to save me, not when Renée was so intent on killing me, not when she had expressly forbidden him from getting the police involved.
Even if he showed up himself, I didn't think that she was going to let me go. In fact, his presence, as much as I would welcome it, would pro
bably goad her into finally killing me, just so that she wouldn't have to watch us together again.
“Renée?” I asked cautiously, not wanting to ruin her trance but knowing that I had to distract her before her thoughts turned deadly again. “I don't even know that much about you and Andrew. How did the two of you meet?”
I hoped the question was innocuous, but enough that she'd prattle on for a while, telling me about their relationship in excruciating detail. If I could just buy myself enough time, I might find a chance to get out of this mess.
Renée's eyes grew dreamy, and she smiled, hugging the gun to her breast. “We had just started high school at the time,” she said. “And we were at this big Christmas party that one of the neighbors used to host every year. I don't know why his family had never been there before. Probably because of his parents.” She frowned, looking momentarily like herself again. But she quickly slipped back into the dream world.
“He was so handsome, as I'm sure you can imagine. He didn't have the muscles like he has today, but he was always a soccer player growing up. So he was definitely fit. And he was dressed in this sexy, fitted green suit. He was the most handsome guy I'd ever seen. And I decided right then that he was going to be mine.”
“But what about everything between then and now?” I asked, frowning. “All the other girls that he dated?”
“He didn't date,” Renée snapped. “I was fine with him sleeping around with other women. I know men. I knew he was just trying to get it all out of his system so that later, he could devote himself to me. And that's exactly what happened.”
She shrugged. “I focused on my career while I waited for him. I opened a fashion line, and then I opened a makeup line to go with it. They were nowhere near as successful as Orinoco, of course, but we can't all be as brilliant as Andrew when it comes to business!” She sighed and went back to her dancing.
I paused, wondering if I should interrupt her again. But I was thinking over what she'd said as well. She'd wanted him for a really long time now. I had to think that Andrew must have realized how crazy she was. How had she managed to go all these years without anyone realizing how deep her obsession with Andrew really was?
Had Andrew set me up for this, knowing that Renée would get jealous and try to knock me out of the picture? Maybe that was his plan for getting Emma out of my custody and into his.
I felt bad the moment I thought it. That was ridiculous. Andrew would never do that. If for no other reason than it was an absurdly complicated plan.
I smiled a little to myself. If I ever got to see him again, I'd have to make sure and tell him about that momentary lack of trust. That probably made up for his lack of trust, when he'd accused me of being nothing more than a con-artist. I supposed we were even now.
“What are you smiling about, you dumb bitch?” Renée snarled, lunging towards me.
Before she could reach me, though, there was a flash of light and a simultaneous loud bang, which both blinded and deafened me. It was a good half minute before I recovered my senses enough to see what was going on.
The next thing I knew, Renée was on the ground, being restrained with zip-ties by armed men dressed in neat, gray-and-black uniforms. I gaped at them.
“Police?” I asked. “How did you manage to find me so quickly? And how did you manage to sneak up on us like that?”
“They're not police,” Andrew said, striding into the warehouse behind me. I jerked my neck around, continuing to gape.
“Well, they're definitely not businessmen,” I said faintly.
His lips quirked into a smile at that, as he knelt down to start undoing my ties. “No, they're definitely not businessmen,” he agreed. “They're part of a security company that I have on call. They're trained in this sort of situation, hence being able to sneak up on you guys and ensure that they get the target without putting you in any more danger.”
He rubbed at my hands, trying to get feeling back into them before he moved on to untying my legs. “We're going to need to get some cream to put on that rope burn,” he said.
“How are you so calm about this?” I asked.
Andrew glanced up at me, and for the briefest moment, his mask fell away, and I could see exactly how terrified he had been. He grunted and looked back down. “This is all adrenaline,” he told me. “When I heard that you were in danger, I had to put away my feelings and do whatever I could to fix the situation.”
“Emma?” I asked.
“Just as safe and unharmed as Renée said,” Andrew confirmed. “I was on my way there when the security guys called and said they had located you. I drove over here instead, but Janice called me as I was driving and confirmed that they're all right. Shaken, but all right.”
“That makes three of us,” I said.
“Four of us,” Andrew corrected, pulling me tightly into his arms. He kissed my hair. “The police are on their way over here now, and this time, Renée is going to go to prison for a long time. And I am never letting either you or Emma out of my sight again.”
“Going to be doing a lot of work from home, are you?” I teased, even though I was still trying to stop shaking.
“If that's what it takes,” Andrew growled. “I'll do whatever it takes to keep my family safe. Don't you forget that.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Andrew
I absently traced patterns on Lexi's skin as we lay in bed together. I still hated taking calls like this when I would much rather be tracing my tongue over every inch of her body, but sometimes they were necessary.
Fortunately, this call was quickly wrapping up. “Thanks for the information,” I finally said. Then, I hung up the phone.
“Who was that?” Lexi asked, sounding sleepy.
I snuggled down under the blankets, pulling her back into my arms and folding my body around hers. “That was the district attorney,” I told her.
“Uh oh,” Lexi said, turning so that she could face me. “You don't sound happy.”
“Somehow, Renée and her lawyers have managed to secure a pretty decent plea bargain,” I said. “Despite the fact that Renée has multiple felony charges against her.” I rolled my eyes.
Lexi swallowed audibly. “So, she's going to walk?” she asked.
“Oh no,” I said, shaking my head emphatically. “Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that. She'll serve at least five years in prison still, with ten years of probation after that. She's not going to be able to come after either of us anytime soon. And I imagine that by the time she's out of prison, she'll have moved on to something else.”
Lexi didn't look fully convinced about that last bit, but she didn't seem too upset. “I'm just happy that it's finally over,” she admitted.
“I know that the trial was difficult for you,” I said, twisting my fingers together with hers and squeezing lightly. “But you handled it all so well. I'm proud of you.”
“Thanks,” she said shyly, ducking her head with a smile. “I do still think that the security measures you installed were a little excessive.”
“I take care of my family,” I reminded her. “I talked to security experts about what we needed.”
“Those guys just wanted to sell you something,” Lexi maintained.
“Not just something,” I said, grinning at her. “A whole host of somethings. A gate, multiple cameras, and multiple security guards. No one is ever going to be able to get in here again without my permission.” We both laughed, but I sobered quickly, the memory of that fateful phone call still too fresh in my memory. “I am never going to let you or Emma get hurt again.”
“Or Janice,” Lexi teased. I had rapidly realized that joking was her way of getting through the emotional trauma, and I appreciated it.
I smiled at her. “Or Janice,” I agreed. “Or that new puppy that we were thinking of getting Emma for her birthday.” Lexi giggled.
“You know,” I told her. “When Renée had you at gunpoint, that’s the worst I’ve ever felt in my entire life. I don't think I cou
ld ever live without you. I know that we still have our fights and that we're maybe not the most perfect family, but I need you in my life. You and Emma are my life. You're what makes it worth getting out of bed in the morning.”
I expected Lexi to make some quip about me and my admittedly still over-the-top work habits, but instead, she looked serious, too. “I was terrified when I was there in that warehouse,” she said. “But I just kept thinking that if I could stall her for long enough, that you would be there, and you would make sure that everything was all right. I knew that you were going to protect me.”
“Of course, I was going to protect you,” I told her, leaning in to kiss her gently.
“You've really changed,” she commented. “Ever since Emma and I came here. At first, you were so distant. I didn't think you were ever going to warm up to me. I watched you interact with Emma, and I could tell that you were growing fonder of her, but I didn't think you were ever going to even be friends with me, let alone something more than friends.”
“I would have still saved you in the warehouse,” I joked.
She laughed, but I could tell she was still trying to get together the words for whatever she was trying to say. “At this point, I can't picture my life without you, either,” she said finally. “You've really become the guy who I always hoped that I would meet. I can tell how much you care about Emma and how much you care about me.”
I took a deep breath, thinking of the box that I had stored in the top drawer of the bedside table. I had wanted to save it for one of our date-nights, to propose to her someplace romantic. Maybe after a good meal and a good bottle of wine. But something about this felt right. Just being there in bed with her, curled up together. Like we belonged together.
I rolled away from her, my mind made up.
“Hey,” I said to her, rolling back over and putting the box in between us. “Lexi, believe it when I say, I can't picture my life without you and Emma in it. And I know that I've made a lot of mistakes and that it's sometimes hard to believe that I really want you here. I also know that you really want to get your life together before we move this any further along. But I want you to know that I'm committed to this, one hundred percent. You may want to hold off on accepting this ring, but Lexi, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”